One of Hollywood’s greatest philanthropists and actors has provided us all with yet another reason to appreciate him.
Brad Pitt’s nonprofit organization, Make It Right, which gained notoriety for its efforts to rebuild New Orleans in the years after Hurricane Katrina, is set to begin construction on a new project this year. The plan is to construct 20 homes for members of the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes on the Fort Peck reservation in Montana. These tribes are in desperate need of housing, as about 6,000 people live on the reservation. Those who live there are caught in a cycle of depression: high drug use; federal funding cuts; and an unemployment rate more than 50%.
“Touring the Fort Peck reservation neighborhoods in Poplar, Montana, we are immediately struck by the poverty and the need for healthy homes,” Taylor Royle, one of the nonprofit’s directors of communications and development, wrote in a blog post on the website. “Some people live in shoddy, substandard public housing. Others live in trailers with tires piled on top to hold the roof down in high winds.”
Make It Right will build three-to-four bedroom, solar-powered homes that will be available to tribe members with income levels at or below 60% of the area’s median income. In addition, a percentage of the homes will be reserved for veterans.
SOURCE: NOLA
